The Pioneer PRO-FHD1 50-inch 1080p plasma monitor's Low color-temperature preset measured closest to the 6,500-degree kelvin grayscale standard, although its picture looked slightly greenish at that setting. After making adjustments in the set's Manual color temperature mode, grayscale tracking measured ±150 degrees K from 30 to 100 IRE - an excellent level of performance. (Calibration needs to be performed by a qualified technician, so discuss it with your dealer before purchasing, or go to imagingscience.com to check for a technician in your area.)

The Pioneer displayed no color decoder error on either of its HDMI or component-video inputs. Overscan - the amount of picture area "hidden" behind the edges of the TV's screen - measured 3% for both the HDMI and component-video inputs when the Full display mode was selected, and 0% in its Dot for Dot mode. Both 1080i/p and 720p-format test patterns showed excellent picture resolution for all high-def inputs, and there was no visible edge enhancement.

The Pioneer passed our screen-uniformity evaluation with flying colors. No banding was visible on movie scenes with foggy backgrounds, and a ramp pattern showed an extremely even gradation of black-and-white tones -the smoothest I've seen so far on a plasma TV. Standard 480i test patterns from the Silicon Optix HQV test DVD showed the set's video upconversion to be very clean with no loss of picture detail.